The Trouble With Boys
by Lady Aeryn
Summary: She's never been exactly sure what the fuss over boys is.


**Title:** The Trouble With Boys  
**Author:** Aeryn  
**Character/Ship:** Luna, one-sided H/L, obliquely referenced H/G  
**Timeframe:** Unspecified, but references OotP/HBP/DH. Possible slight AU.  
**Rating:** G, alas  
**Disclaimer:** Jo owns it all, and I'm broke.

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She's never been exactly sure what the fuss over boys is.

As a whole they aren't any prettier than girls. Nor nicer, or smarter. Except her dad, of course; he's the most brilliant person she knows.

They certainly don't smell any better. She learned that at five. Her parents had taken her with them to visit a Wizarding family in France with a boy her age. By then she'd seen her parents kiss on the lips many times, and noticed that it always seemed to make them smile. So she'd leaned over, in full view of both sets of parents, and pecked her lips against the other boy's. And felt... nothing. No urge to smile at all. In fact, she'd frowned, because she thought that the boy had smelled and tasted like the last batch of overcooked Plimpie soup her dad had left sitting out too long. He'd been even less thrilled; he'd howled and darted behind his mom, wiping off his mouth as if a troll had sneezed on him. Which Luna thought a little rude - she'd been cleaner than whatever _he _had been rolling in.

Come the night of the Yule Ball in third year her dormmates who'd managed to get older dates had been unrecognizable, and Luna considered that maybe _that_ was what she'd been doing "wrong." While Luna was engrossed in her early Christmas present from her father, the latest book on Crumple-Horned Snorkack mythology, each of the other girls was frantically perfecting a hairstyle which - along with their makeup and dress, and the boy too - had ended up very disheveled by the time they got back to the common room. It all seemed a lot of effort for something that was undone within a few hours, and Luna wondered why simply using one's imagination - which lasted much longer than any Sleekeazy potion - no longer sufficed.

Then one day, Harry Potter hadn't been able to find a seat on the train.

**************

Harry is always interesting to observe. Now he's in what Luna's come to think of as his Typical Harry Pose, leaned against a tree with his arms wrapped round his knees, staring across the lake, glasses dangling from one hand. He does brood quite a lot, which she supposes should be boring to watch, but she finds her eyes are very comfortable with it.

She has a good view from here. She's already mentally catalogued his features very well, enough that she thinks she could paint a pretty accurate likeness (and has; his was the first she'd finished of the set on her wall). The slim build - he's quite nicely shaped - strong cheekbones and jaw, doll-pale skin against midnight sky-shaded hair just as messy as hers and which always seems to catch whatever breeze he sits in. And of course, his eyes. They're a green Luna hopes she'll never see anywhere else, so they'll stay unique, and she can always associate that shade of green with him. She decides they're why she keeps looking at him, why Ginny likes to look at him too. They were the first thing Luna ever noticed about him. Well, that and his scar, but that hadn't been nearly as interesting.

He doesn't seem to have noticed her - which isn't surprising, given that Ginny was with him up until only a few minutes ago, and Luna is reclining up in the limbs of another tree. She's not hiding from him, but he was rather too occupied to interrupt when she'd gotten here, and he seems so peaceful now that she doesn't want to disturb him. She needs to study for her OWLs anyway, and this has been her favorite spot since first year: high enough that it requires too much effort for her classmates to knock her down, but not so high she'd hurt anything if she fell down. Not that she ever has.

She thinks she wouldn't mind Harry helping her if she _were_ to fall.

He always seems to gaze far beyond his body, at some realm only he can see, and Luna wishes she could see it too. Maybe it's Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, or even a troupe of Heliopaths, though she likes to think he'd tell her if he ever found either of those. She wonders if he's looking at wherever his parents and godfather are, and if her mum is there too.

Mum would have liked Harry, she thinks - and is surprised, just for a moment, to feel her eyes sting.

* * *

Harry has always been an oddity at Hogwarts, even before the first year Luna set foot in it. That was the year everyone thought he was the Heir of Slytherin (which was utter nonsense; it should've been common knowledge that the Heirs of Slytherin had a defect in their bloodline that made their fingernails purple in dim lighting, and Harry's were not). People whispered and clustered away whenever he was near, behavior all too familiar to her. He'd certainly seemed to be in his own world a lot of the time - that year she'd waved at him at least twice but he never seemed to notice - which Luna found quite understandable. If the world outside thought she was the descendant of a mad racist and was Petrifying his classmates, she'd spend more time in another world too. She often did so anyway.

No, Harry isn't like the rest. Unlike other boys she's known, he's never hidden her things, insulted her father, or called her "Loony" to her face. He's the first one Luna could remember calling her a _friend_ - and vice versa - a word that both warms and (for some reason) confuses her. She thinks maybe he, unlike other boys - or girls, for that matter - understands her, just a bit. Or at least doesn't _mind_ if he doesn't understand everything about her. He'd even called her "cool" - which had left her face pleasantly warm - and had asked her to go with him, apropos of nothing, to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party.

She remembers what it felt like to put on Mum's silver dress robes and see Harry smile when he looked at her. She hadn't experienced any urge to giggle or blush or look away, but it had certainly felt nice. When his hand had locked around hers as he was dragged off by Slughorn, it _wasn't_ the earth-trembling event her dormmates tittered about - no electricity surging through her, no sparks. But it hadn't been unpleasant either. His hand was warm, solid, and she liked the way it gripped hers without thinking. And he'd smelled like soap and grass and sunshine and something else she could only call _Harry_.

It had been great to spend time one-on-one with him, something that didn't happen often. And perhaps best of all, she'd gotten to hear him laugh. She likes his laugh, because he doesn't do it much anymore, and Harry's the one person she knows aside from Dad that whenever they laugh around her, she can be certain it isn't because they'e mocking her.

But no fireworks had gone off, or anything like that. It had simply happened. Though Luna thinks she wouldn't mind it happening again. She's even dreamed about his hand holding hers a couple of times, sometimes with him even stroking her hand, though Luna wonders if it was the Wrackspurt she'd felt buzzing around her bed that night.

The morning in Shell Cottage after she first dreams of kissing him - after they'd escaped from the Malfoys' dungeon - she casts an anti-Swarm charm around the bed, certain the Wrackspurt stalking her must've found friends. But the next night it happens again, and Luna wakes up with a blush on her cheeks. There's no way her charm had been wrong - and no Wrackspurt would cause her to think that in her dream, Harry tasted nothing like bad Plimpie soup, and felt like the sun on her face in summertime.

It isn't until that final battle that she knows for sure. In that forest with Ernie and Seamus, it isn't her father she'd thinks of, as she always does when she casts her Patronus. There's Neville, Ginny, Hermione, and Ronald flashing through her brain... but clearer and sharper than any of the others, _him_. Then he's there before her eyes, flesh and blood. Broken, shaking, and paler than usual, but still alive. Still there. Still breathing. And the most beautiful thing she's seen in her life.

Maybe, she decides, it's not _all_ boys that one needs to fuss over.

Just one.

-

[end]


End file.
